Word: meant
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first manned balloon flight took place on Nov. 21, 1783, in Paris. The balloon was blue and gold and 70 ft. (about 20 m) tall. It had no basket. You rode on a kind of circular balcony that hung around the balloon's neck like a collar. This meant that there had to be two passengers, for balance, and they had to stay on opposite sides of the balloon at all times. The two men in question were Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, a young doctor who was exactly as dashing as he sounds, and the Marquis...
...Just a few years ago, five young men in a room in Sierra Leone would have meant trouble. It was men in their teens and their 20s - but also, tragically, children even younger - who made up the Revolutionary United Front, a ragtag armed militia supported by Liberia's President Charles Taylor (now on trial for war crimes at the Hague) that devastated the country during an 11-year civil war that ended in 2002. Everywhere they went they left a calling card of chopped-off limbs, raped women and senseless bloodshed. Tens of thousands were killed and a third...
...false alarm. Rumors had swept the trading floor that China was going to tighten money supply. That night, the central bank reaffirmed its loose monetary policy that is meant to support economic growth and pledged to refrain from imposing loan quotas to control bank lending. The next day, the Chinese banks that were said to be cutting back on credit denied they would do so. On July 31, the Shanghai index rebounded 2.7%, the biggest rise in two months; China stocks in July rose 15%, the largest monthly gain since 2007. (See pictures of China's infrastructure boom...
This is all grist for the China skeptics' mill. If low-interest loans meant to keep businesses humming are being diverted to stock speculation, how sustainable is China's recovery? An asset bubble may already be forming. The initial public offerings (IPOs) of Chinese companies in China and Hong Kong are being bid up to eye-popping heights. The $7.3 billion IPO of China State Construction Engineering, which debuted on the Shanghai bourse last week, soared 90% on its first trading day. The property market is sizzling too. New home sales in Shanghai shot up 70% in the first half...
...meantime, is using the downturn to refocus its American efforts. It knows the U.S. market is key to any manufacturer with global ambitions and plans to boost sales there with what VW officials call their "Toyota killer" - a new mid-sized car specifically designed for the U.S. and meant to compete head-to-head with the popular Toyota Camry. The car will be produced in a new plant under construction in Tennessee. (See the 50 worst cars of all time...